If such a design were workable, the ship would have to be mostly batteries if it were intended as an interstellar vessel (or even to visit the outer planets of a stellar system); solar power won't work too well once you get out past a certain distance from the sun. Out in between stars, there isn't enough sunlight to run a solar-powered calculator -- and the ship's inertia would eventually be worn down by collisions with particulate matter, etc...
If it's truly a starship, and not just an interplanetary vessel, it would probably have to be either a generational or sleeper ship -- I can't envision steam producing any kind of thrust (even indirectly) that would come close to making the journey between stars possible within a single lifetime.
A generational ship introduces additional problems, because you'd need a big enough ship to include gardens or hydroponics bays, in order to be self-sufficient; however, this increases the mass, which in turn increases the amount of thrust needed to move the vessel (not to mention additional energy requirements for growing lamps, etc.)
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Jeff Lee --
shipbrk@gate.net --
http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/
POV-Ray oldtimer,
Animation Master newbie.
Etiam singula minima maximi momenti est. <FONT size="1"><FONT COLOR="blue">(Even the smallest detail is of the utmost importance.)</FONT c></FONT s>
A Steam Powered Starship (Discussion)
